Well the BBC headlines the UK has a 50/50 chance of falling into recession within the next 18 months following Brexit vote.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) says the country will go through a “marked economic slowdown” this year and next.

It says inflation will also pick up, rising to 3 per cent by the end of next year and overall the institute forecasts the UK economy will probably grow by 1.7 per cent this year but will expand by just 1 per cent in 2017.

This would see the UK avoid a technical recession, typically defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.

So not a recession then?

Bitter battle over pension claims

An intriguing story in The Daily Express as news emerges Britain is facing a bittle battle with the EU over a £50b bill funding funding the pensions of thousands of Eurocrats.

The paper says Brussels officials have calculated the total will be required to cover the liability retirement incomes for the officials once the UK leaves the EU. And unions have suggested that the British Government should hand over a lump sum as part of a departure deal.

Anti-EU campaigners last night suggested that Brussels should remain responsible for the payments.

EU insiders are predicting funding for the pensions could prove to be among the most poisonous issues as the Government negotiates the country’s exit from the bloc.

Let me remind you of a couple of facts here – Lord Mandelson receives an annual EU pension worth £31,000 after his stint as trade commissioner and former Labour leader Lord Kinnock is entitled to more than £89,000 a year after serving two terms as a commissioner.

Ahem…

EU on the brink of collapse

The Daily Express also reports today that the EU is on the brink of collapse if its tarde deal with Canada hits the skids.

The paper says the EU’s director general for trade Jean-Luc Demarty said EU business and industry will be “close to death” if both parties cannot agree the deal. The EU is facing public opposition towards Brussels’ trading policy and in what’s described as a “devastating blow for Brussels”, it needs all of its 38 national and regional parliaments to agree the deal for it to be signed by Canada, which could result in delays and possible vetoes to the agreement.

And in a further blow Jamie Dimon, CEO of American banking behemoth JP Morgan Chase, is quoted in The Daily Express making the prediction the zone’s currency is facing crisis as amid signs of a major slowdown across the continent.

The top banker said a collapse of the Euro could happen as soon as 2021, saying: “It may take more than five years, but it may very well happen.”

No fudges – let’s get on with it

Interesting read in The Daily Express today from Lord Stevens – We have no right to ignore the will of the people. Well worth a read.

28 Responses to Post referendum debrief August 3

The EU referendum result was legally binding on the government to leave the EUropean Union and not just advisory.
This article in the link below explains why and here are a few extracts.
The Conservative General Election Manifesto of 2015 promised a referendum on membership of the EU in the following terms:
“We believe in letting the people decide: so we will hold an in-out referendum on our membership of the EU before the end of 2017.”
It should be noted that the election promise was to “let the people decide”. It was not a promise to hold an advisory referendum, with the final decision being left to Parliament. Nor was there any mention of minimum thresholds of percentage of vote or of turnout before the referendum would be binding. Therefore the British people were given a politically and constitutionally binding promise in the election manifesto of the successful party that they would be given the final and deciding say in a referendum in which the majority would prevail.
To emphasis this it confirms it again in the £9 million government booklet statement
“The referendum on Thursday 23rd June is your chance to decide if we should remain in the European Union.”
It did not say
“it is your chance to advise on whether we should remain, the actual decision being taken by Parliament.”
But it went on to be even clearer and more emphatic:
“This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide.”
Read more in the articlehttp://lawyersforbritain.org/brexit-referendum-binding.shtml

What really annoys me is the Tories have a majority of 12 or 2% and this enables them to form a government with a fraction of the votes cast at the referendum.
The Welsh assembly was created after a recount and a majority of 6000. No one suggested either of these results should be reviewed or re-run

To suggest that we pay anything extra towards eurocrat pensions is an outrage. We will pay our dues, as we always have. Most of the EU countries have defaulted on debts or actually gone to the wall, Greece several times. This country has never behaved in such a way.

We will pay the EU what we owe it up to the day we leave. That is fair and proper, if unpalatable. To suggest we pay some sort of exit premium is quite absurd. If the EU cannot do its sums properly, tough. We know it is top heavy with privileged employees with special benefits and a special low rate of tax which is one of the many reasons we chose to leave.

If the EU has a shortfall, adjust the tax rate to make it good. Then again I beleive that we are the only country with a more or less properly funded pension system, even after Gordon Brown tried to destroy it.

Lord Somebody-Or-Other of Somewhere has already whinged in the HoL about it. The problem with it all is that folk were led to believe it was all to be a job for life+. That shiny EU thing from hereon and forever…really cushy stuff. The school fees and so on. Reality ain’t like that! So they’ll need to beg Angular Mankel since she’s not short of a good few DM’s.

We do appear to be having problems over selecting suitable candidates for election to replace Nigel Farage. The vote is taken by the membership at Branch level, and locally we are currently in discussion on the event.
Disruptive elements will not be allowed to split the Party asunder. Just remember we have successfully supported the vote to leave the EU and a strong Party is still needed to see it enforced.
Remember the majority of the Parliamentary Labour Party failed their heartlands who have suffered the most from mass immigration ( integration is a Blairite pipe-dream).

I see that you are coming down squarely on the side of investment bankers, Mr Helmer.

Quite why you think that Jamie Dimon shouldn’t be in jail already is up to you, but without buying off the White House and Capitol Hill for the past however many elections, he would not be a free man to express such sentiments……

Go and have a chat with Max Keiser, who actually knows something about investment banking….

Your hatred of the EU is causing you to have some strange bedfellows……

” Lord Mandelson receives an annual EU pension worth £31,000 after his stint as trade commissioner and former Labour leader Lord Kinnock is entitled to more than £89,000 a year after serving two terms as a commissioner.”
These are just two who receive these bloated payments, Kinnocks wife is also on the payroll, so those two are really raking it in (and that’s just their pension income) I dread to think how many more will get a huge pension. All of this really sticks in the throat of the frozen state pensioners who have paid a lifetime of NI contributions only to find that 4% are having their indexing withheld just because of where they live. The UK has the meanest pension payout of any of the ‘rich’ countries, only Mexico and Chile pay their pensioners less and the DWP has the nerve to say to the 4% that they can’t afford to pay what is rightfully theirs but pay the rest an indexed pension yet ALL have paid for their pension under the same terms. The NI fund has a surplus of £20 BILLION but the treasury, who really control everything, get away with this theft and discrimination year after year. Way past time this scandal ended.

As to the EU Pensions, the first consideration is where lies the legal liability. As it is an EU pension I would guess the buck stops with the EU.

Another way of looking at it is to examine what pension liability the recent accession countries have for the costs of the pensions paid before they joined.

If this is simply a negotiating ploy by the EU then the best response is a simple “NO”. And in any event I thought the EU was adamant that there would be no negotiation until Article 50 has been activated.

Is there anyone in UKIP documenting/listing all these Doom mongers comments so that in future debates they can be exposed for the nonsense they have previously espoused. I say this because I believe SOME politicians rely on the voting public have a short memory.

As the voting public are mostly seniors, as has been said since the referendum, fear not, their long term memories will be intact. Remembering what a politician promised or pledged a few weeks/months ago will be lodged in the grey cells, what one had for lunch yesterday, not so much!

I look at the problem with the E.U. in a very simple way, and I make no apologies for that, as there is no point in needless complications. 1. The E.U. is not a costed entity and our withdrawal is only the first of many changes to it’s income. 2. There is no point in sodding about with signing the farewell note, (Article 50), so just do it. 3. Although at first it may have been a good idea, it is not now, and we need to be well clear of it. 4. I wanted Farage & Co. to be involved, but it is clear that is not necessary. Just get out with a minimum of delay, and let the member states come to us for trade arrangements. 5. The E.U. is a nonentity. and will fold in the near future, and we will be best served to look upon it as a mistake in our history ! Get cracking !

The EU is a “non-entity”? It’s what the WTO calls a ‘Regional Trade Organisation”. Hence it can set a common external tariff. The U.K. Is not an RTA, so cannot. UK can’t levy tariffs on Germany and France while waiving them on other countries. It’s called the most favourited nation rule. This whole notion UK has any kind of negotiating clout is a ukip pipe dream.

I find it a bit rich coming from a UKIP MEP to hear a suggestion UK could walk away from it’s obligations to fund it’s fair share of outstanding EU pension obligations. Surely Mr. Helmer would be the first to benefit from such an arrangement. Now if Roger resigned and said goodbey to his fat Brussels pay check, now that would be a gesture I could respect. In the end he’s just another fat cat that can’t even be bothered to do the job he was elected to do.

Can you explain how the UK could leverage tariffs on EU imports (i.e. German or French cars) without being in breach of WTO MFN (Most Favourited Nation) obligations? I guess that’s a no then ( or a yes from a position of ignorance) The truth is these things wil all be thrown in the negotiation balance and than it will turn out the UK will have remarkable little to negotiate with. Voila, kip ignorance exposed big time!

Elsewhere you ask me to believe in an “unwritten” constitution but here you want me to look up chapter and verse? I have better things to do. We’ll just block any trade agreement till 25 billion outstanding EU bills are settled in full 😝